


Trolls

by Davechicken



Series: Kylux - Fluff & Angst [167]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: If you strike me down I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine, M/M, Pre-Slash, This is for all my haters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 09:09:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9812633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: Hux gets hate mail.





	

The annoying thing about your address becoming public is trying to find the legitimate comms in amongst all the ridiculous death threats, anonymous calls for him to throw himself into a sun; or the subscriptions to things like _Wookie Sexual Health_ , competitions for swoopbikes, and begging letters from foreign princesses.

To begin with, some had been amusing. He didn’t need his penis enlarging, or removing and feeding to a Rancor. He didn’t need to know how the Order’s rule was making baby orphans cry themselves to sleep in their own excrement. He didn’t need to see images of mutilation or sexual deviancy. He’d looked at a few, and then not looked at another one, since.

Hux is not going to change his address; he’s had it since he was very young. It’s up to the Order to organise the spam filtering better, so he doesn’t see all the bullshit. After the first few days of blocking entire sender domains, he’s realised there’s just far too many to do that successfully.

But he’s too stubborn to abandon the address. It’s - it’s _his_. It’s been his, for as long as he can remember existing. And he’s not about to lose a handle he loves (even if it’s automatically generated and assigned), just because some low-life had the audacity to make it public.

(If the investigation ever finds out _who_ leaked it, oh will they rue the day.)

What he doesn’t expect is the sudden flurry of defence he gets. He doesn’t even know about it for days, but then Mitaka makes an off-hand comment about how well he’s been defending his position, and he snaps:

“What?”  


“I mean… I know you’re pretending it isn’t you, Sir, but–”  


“I’m not pretending _anything_.” And then he pauses. “Show me.”  


***

Forum after forum, blog after blog, open letter after open letter. A staunch defence of him, personally. It’s more Hux-defence than Order-defence (with a few things about the Dark Side and the Supreme Leader lurking on the edges), and Hux is… baffled.

Whoever is posting has insider information about him, and seems to really, really want to defend him from these people who don’t have two brain cells to set on fire.

It’s… kind of… sweet, but also worrying? Because they really, _really_ know a lot about him. And if he hadn’t said something, Hux would suspect it was Mitaka, or another high-ranking officer trying to curry favour. But Mitaka knows _everyone_ and almost everything (except about Hux), so if it was an ass-kissing sycophant, he’d know.

It’s the… Force things that give him pause. 

Hux decides he has to ask the man outright.

***

“Ren.”  


“Hux.”  


“This is… a delicate matter.” This had gone so much more smoothly in his head, when he practised it a hundred times or more. Hux wonders why he can never fully anticipate how awkward he will feel.  


“What?”  


“Have… have you… have you been making public… declarations… about me?”  


“…you can’t prove anything.”  


So it was true. Hah. “I’m… First, I’m touched. Second, I’m worried that you have the time to write such op ed pieces, and third… why?”

“Just… shut up, okay?” Ren does that thing he does where he puffs up. It doesn’t look threatening, not now. It looks like an alarmed sea-creature trying to look too big to eat.

Hux perseveres. “I’m… grateful, if… alarmed. But you don’t need to defend my honour, you know.”  


“Did you _see_ what they wrote about you?”  


“If you feed the trolls, they just keep coming. I’ve been subject to smear campaigns before, Kylo. This is just the same. Ignore them, because you won’t change their minds; you’ll just make yourself miserable trying.”  


It was a lesson he’d learned the hard way.

“But…”  


“Trust me on this. Stop interacting with them, and they will get bored. Their opinions don’t matter to me, but… well. Your support is… I appreciate it.” He’s flushing more about that admission than any death threat.   


“…fine. I just… I didn’t like reading it, when it’s not true.”  


“Then don’t read it,” Hux suggests. “You’ll be infinitely happier if you don’t. I know it’s not easy to do, but… try, for me?”  


Kylo’s mask skitters his gaze away, and Hux smiles, fondly.

“And thank you,” he adds. Hux decides to leave, before this gets any more awkward. He really is very touched, though. Maybe Ren isn’t as awful as he’d first appeared.  


(Although now he’s wondering if he is the leak, and this is all guilt-tripping. Oh well. He’s learned his lesson, if nothing else.)


End file.
